Nightmares
by Sionnain
Summary: Sometimes all his reasons for fighting can be found in the dark, in the nightmares that wake everyone else. MagnetoXRogue, set in my Ideologyverse for backstory. Also references PyroXGambit, MystiqueXMesmero.


**Nightmares**

_"History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake."--James Joyce_

Erik had no idea what woke him up, but he had enough experiences with nightmares to know it probably wasn't anything good. He could still feel the remnants of the dream there, if he concentrated, clinging to his consciousness like spiderwebs. Blinking, he sat up and stared towards the window, but the clouds had swallowed the moon and the only thing he could see beyond was darkness, broken by the occasional spill of sickly-pale light when the clouds shifted.

He had a memory of the prison, of the soft fluorescent glow of the guards station beyond the gaping chasm that surrounding his plastic cube. His mouth set in a grim line, and he tossed the covers back and got out of bed. It wasn't until he'd rounded the bed that he noticed its emptiness. The clock numbers glowed at him that it was thirty minutes past three am. She was a night-owl, but this was late even for her. He left the bedroom and walked down the hallway, opening himself to the metal and letting it soothe the tension in his neck and shoulders. It helped, a little.

Rogue wasn't in the rec room or the kitchen, all of which were silent and dark, though something about the rooms had the air of having been recently occupied. He walked down the staircase which led to the work-out room, and there was a yellow glow beneath the door which told him he'd likely found Rogue. He pushed the door open, but to his surprise, it wasn't Rogue on the treadmill but Mystique. The thump-thump of her feet on the treadmill beat out a steady, even pace.

"Has something happened?" she asked him, the sound of her voice as familiar as the yellow gleam of her eyes. He'd missed her nearly as acutely as he had the metal while he'd been in prison.

"No," he said quietly, watching as she ran. "I couldn't sleep."

"Decided to come for a run?" She flashed a grin at him. "Not the usual nighttime exercise you were fond of when you couldn't sleep, if I recall. Jailbait there not as accommodating as I was?"

He smiled, shaking his head at her nickname for Rogue. "She's not there."

"Ah," Mystique said, laughing. "So you're looking for her."

"Now that I think of it, I should have known it was you. This always was your favorite way to burn off excess energy. Is Mesmero averse to my preferred method of physical exercise when awoken in the middle of the night?"

"Mesmero sleeps like the dead," Mystique said, her atonal voice belying nothing of her exertions.

"Must be nice," Erik murmured, slightly envious.

Mystique turned to him, and while he couldn't read anything in the flat glow of her eyes, there was a set to her mouth he recognized. "Yeah."

Something unpleasant had awoken her, as well. "The usual, then?"

She nodded, turning away from him, a tenseness in her shoulders belying her usual unwillingness to talk about her nightmares. She'd told him once what they were--some gruesome tableau about villagers and a river and the choking darkness of moving water. He forgot at times, because she was physically unchanging in her natural form, how much older she was than him. Though the idea of intolerant villagers driving out and murdering those who were different was not exactly something of which he had no knowledge, at least his family was never complacent in the horrors he himself had suffered.

Though really, did it matter? Humanity proved over and over it never changed, that it would always seek to destroy what it feared the most. "I can't imagine Mesmero has no nightmares of his own."

Mystique slowed her run to a jog. He wondered how long she'd been on there. There was no way to tell--it could have been minutes or hours. "He does. He can do something when he goes to sleep so that he can control his dreams. I think it's some side-effect of his mutation."

"Can he really? How fascinating. A pity he can't do it for you, then."

Mystique switched off the treadmill, then gracefully exited the machine. "He could, if I wanted. I told him no."

He cocked his head at her, surprised. "Why?"

"Because I don't want to forget. It was a long time ago." She turned from him and moved towards the free-weights. "Do you want to join me?"

"I'll go find my own form of absolution, thank you," he said wryly, and saw her shake her head.

"You should be glad for my late-night exercising, seeing as how it helped save you from jail," she muttered, selecting a weight and beginning a series of arm curls.

"Oh? Here I thought you used your wits to free me, not your brawn."

She looked over her shoulder at him, muscles sliding and shifting her scales like silk as she continued her repetitions. "I came up with the idea one night when I couldn't sleep. Right on that treadmill." She smiled viciously. "Healthy body, healthy mind."

"Quite true," he said quietly, flexing his fingers. He was wearing gloves, as he always did now to bed. "What machinations are you considering in that fiendish mind of yours at present?"

"Nothing that matters. All the people I'd like to kill are already dead." She switched arms, beginning her repetitions anew.

He remembered the guard he'd killed in his escape from prison, and far beyond that, the ones he'd wanted to kill in his youth but had been too weak from starvation to accomplish. He'd dreamed of finding them and killing them, even years after the war had ended, though it would have been nigh impossible to find them.

"Maybe that's why we don't sleep," he said thoughtfully. "Though perhaps there is some justice in the fact we outlived them all."

'Maybe," she said, setting down the free weight and selecting another, presenting her back to him. She didn't sound very convinced.

He would tell her not to stay up too late, but it wouldn't matter. Neither of them would go back to bed before the sun rose. He left her there, thinking about ghosts.

ooooooooOOOOOOOOoooooooo

There was a light on in the kitchen, but it wasn't Rogue. It was Pyro, looking sleepy and disheveled but annoyed, rummaging through the fridge and muttering something about milk.

"I think we're out of fresh milk. You'll have to mix up the powdered kind if you want any."

Pyro jumped, obviously not expecting anyone to be there, and hit his head on the top of the fridge. He rubbed it with a wince. He reminded Erik of a gangly teenage boy in that moment, much more than he ever had. "I don't like that stuff. It tastes funny. I'll just have a Dr. Pepper."

"At nearly four in the morning?" Erik shook his head in exasperation. "How will you ever get back to sleep?"

Pyro shrugged, popping the top of the can of soda he'd retrieved and leaning against the counter. "I drink a lot of soda. This one won't hurt, I guess." He tipped the soda back and drank.

Erik noticed the legs on his pajamas were several inches too short. "You seem to be growing."

Pyro looked vaguely uncomfortable at the observation, which Erik let pass. "Yeah. Guess so."

"You need some new clothes, I imagine. I'll mention it to Mystique." Erik watched as Pyro's fingers wrapped around the can of soda, tightening slightly. The boy seemed to tense. "Unless you enjoy the aesthetic of pants that end just above your ankle? I'm hardly up on the latest fashion trends."

"What? Oh, no. It's...it's fine. Just, you know. Don't want to be any trouble." He tapped his foot anxiously on the floor and drank his soda. Pyro's nervous energy reminded Erik of Gambit, who could never sit still.

"It's not trouble to clothe you properly," Erik said, slightly insulted. "Or did you think I picked you up at Alkali and expected you to wear that horrible jumpsuit garment forever?"

"No, I just..." Pyro trailed off, then moved abruptly to throw his finished can of soda away in the trashcan. Erik was both impressed and worried at the amazing speed in which Pyro had drained that soda. No wonder they went through more of those cases than he had previously thought possible.

"Why are you awake?" Erik asked, curious. Perhaps he and Gambit had fought, though they all usually heard that when it happened.

"Dunno. Couldn't sleep." The light from the kitchen shone briefly in Pyro's dark eyes. They were guarded, cautious, as Rogue's sometimes were. Sometimes, Erik really did think they could be siblings.

Mystique had told him, shortly after Pyro had arrived, that the boy made his bed every day and kept all of his small collection of belongings packed in a suitcase in his closet. Erik wondered if he'd done that at Xavier's, too, but he'd never asked. Eventually Pyro had stopped doing that, which seemed to suggest he'd finally settled in.

"Can I ask you a question?"

Erik nodded, hiding his surprise. "You may."

"Do you think we'll ever see them again?"

He didn't need to ask who they were. "I imagine so."

"They'll be pissed. At me. At Rogue. At you."

"I imagine they will be," Erik said calmly. "Is that what woke you up tonight, then? Thoughts of seeing your former teammates?"

Pyro shook his head and ran a hand through his disheveled hair. "No. Not really. I was just thirsty." He turned to leave the kitchen. "You want me to leave the light on?"

"No, thank you. I'm just looking for Rogue. Have you seen her?" He followed Pyro out of the kitchen, glancing towards the rec room, which was still dark.

"No. But the door to the crow's nest was open I think." Pyro stopped outside of Gambit's room. "Um. Night."

"Good night," Erik said, amused by the sudden flush on the young man's face. "I expect you up at the regular time tomorrow, of course."

"Yeah. Yes, sir," he amended, pushing the door open and disappearing inside. He closed the door lightly. Erik wondered if Pyro would eventually get back to sleep despite the consumption of his soda and whatever nightmare had awoken him. Maybe he would. The young were resilient, after all.

ooooooooOOOOoooooooo

She wasn't in the surveillance room, but instead was out on the small open enclosure, staring out over the ledge. The breeze picked up loose strands of her hair that had escaped from her sloppy ponytail. She wasn't wearing gloves. "Hey."

"Hello. An odd time to be stargazing."

She shrugged, the gesture reminiscent of Pyro. "Yeah. Couldn't sleep."

"A common malady, it would seem."

She looked at him, her dark eyes somber. The occasional sliver of moonlight seemed to make the strands of white in her hair glow briefly before the light faded. "I thought maybe I'd watch the sun rise or something."

"That won't be for hours yet. The sun usually rises after we've eaten breakfast."

"Yeah, so it wasn't that great of a plan," she muttered, scowling. "It is really late, okay? I wasn't thinkin' straight." Her accent was soft, lyrical.

He kept his face serious. "As long as you admit it." He joined her at the metal railing, looking down at the sea below. It was a calm night, despite the clouds; the sea moved gently beneath, dark water undulated and shifting like a sigh. "A relaxing sight."

"If you say so." Rogue shuddered, though he knew she was trying to hide it; her small body twisted almost as imperceptibly as the waves beneath them, but he was adept enough at reading her body language to tell.

"Still afraid of heights?"

"You know, I never was before..." she trailed off, turning her face away. "Never mind."

He reached out and took her chin between his fingers, turning her gaze back to him. "Before the Statue. It happened, Rogue. There's no point in pretending it didn't."

"Trust me, Erik. I don't think that it didn't." Her lips pressed together. "You just hate it when I talk about it."

"No, I hated when you first came here and threw it back at me at every possible opportunity." He released his hold on her chin, but kept her gaze caught with his own.

"I was scared. You deserved it." Her voice was knife-edged with anger.

"I'm not saying I didn't. I'm just saying I didn't like it."

She expelled a breath and turned away again. "Forget it. We should go inside. I have like, three hours left to sleep."

It was two, at this point, but he wasn't going to tell her that. "What woke you up, Marie?"

She whirled around, hands on her hips. "What woke you up, Erik?"

"A nightmare."

"About what?" she demanded, and he almost laughed at her display of pique, but he remembered she wasn't wearing her gloves. She was dangerous and in a volatile mood, and beneath the love she had for him there was hate, too. Even if she would never admit it, or even if it was for what he'd done to her rather than for him, it was still there. Every now and then it peeked out, just like the moon was doing from beneath the gathering dark clouds.

"I don't remember. I assume it was the usual. The camps, prison." The day he'd left Charles. Thinking Mystique was dead. His subconscious had so many memories from which to choose. Perhaps it had been some gruesome amalgamation of all of them, and he'd been spared the effects out of some sense of mercy possessed by his unconscious.

"Do you ever have nightmares about what you tried to do to me?"

He stared her straight in the eyes and answered her question. There was no room between them for pretty lies. "No."

She nodded. "Thank you for not lying." Her voice was still strangled, but he believed she was sincere. "Now could you please leave me alone?"

"If you wish." He turned to go, and saw her gloves lying on the floor of the metal enclosure. "Do you want your gloves?"

"I won't forget them, if that's what you're asking."

"I know you won't, Rogue." He turned to look at her there, silent and oddly forlorn. He had the strangest urge to embrace her, but he did not think his touch would evoke anything good in her at the moment. "I'm sorry, if it matters. That you dream of it, still." He was, for what it was worth.

"You're also sorry it didn't work."

He inclined his head. Lying about that was useless when she knew it to be true from the absorption of his thoughts when he touched her. This could not go anywhere good if they continued. There was a reason they never discussed Liberty Island. It tore down the fragile thing that existed between them, already gossamer-thin and stretched as taunt as is it could possibly be. That it existed at all was shocking enough.

"You have nightmares about Alkali. About Charles. And that didn't even work." She sounded petulant, just slightly, but could he really blame her?

"That was different. He was my lover for many years. You were--"

"Nothing to you."

"Nothing to me." He dropped his hand and walked back to where she stood. He still didn't touch her--her entire body screamed at him not to try it--but he stood as close as he could. "You are not nothing to me now."

He didn't know whether or not that placated her. "Would you have had nightmares about it if it had worked?"

"I can't possibly know the answer to that. Is that what you want, Marie? To be in my nightmares?"

She looked away, towards the sea. Her voice was very tired. "No. I don't know. I don't even know why we're having this conversation. Please just leave me alone."

"As you wish," he said, turning and leaving her there. He had a feeling this conversation was not over, and that really, it never would be.

ooooooooOOOOooooooo

She came to bed almost an hour later, sliding between the covers and moving cautiously towards him. He could feel the chill of her body from where he lay on his back, still awake and staring out of the window as the sky lightened. Perhaps he was wrong about the sunrise. It was easy, in his fortress of metal and stone in the middle of the sea, to forget that the seasons changed.

He moved to his side and pulled her back against him, seeking some sort of solace in the softness of her body against his, giving her an offering of peace in the only way he knew how. She sighed and relaxed back in his embrace. "I'm sorry," she said quietly.

He rested his chin on top of her head, inhaling the scent of her mixed with the slight tinge of salt from the sea air. "I am sorry I cannot give you the answers you want."

"I don't know the answers I want," she murmured, sounding drowsy. She settled herself more snugly against him and he drew his fingers over her cotton-covered arm. Her hands were gloved in soft white leather, and one came up to briefly rest atop of his. Touch, for her, was a gift she did not accept lightly. "I don't want you to have nightmares. I don't want them to be about me. I don't want to have nightmares about you laughing while you try and kill me." She shuddered.

"That was what your nightmare was about?"

"You had built another machine. You just pretended to love me so that I would get in it willingly this time."

He paused in mid-stroke, fingers resting lightly against her side. "The machine was faulty. Even if you had died, it wouldn't have mattered. It would have all been in vain." His voice was tight, now. This was the part of it that galled him the most; that he had almost sacrificed one of his own (for she was that, even before she was his, by virtue of being a mutant) for something that did not work.

For nothing.

"Do you know what the worst part of the nightmare was, Erik?" She turned in his arms and he loosened his hold so that he was staring down at her.

"That you did it."

She nodded. He leaned down and kissed her until her powers started, pulling away after a moment. Her fingers wound in his hair, leather sliding against his scalp, and his hands went to the hem of her shirt and pulled. He pushed her beneath him, and she wrapped her legs around his waist. "When I do that...what does it feel like?" she gasped, arching hard beneath his touch.

"Like drowning," he said, his voice rough from desire and the draw and something else that made him furious to touch her, possess her, show her that she was his.

Afterwards, she was quiet in his arms, sprawled warm on top of his chest. "That you made you happy."

He smiled briefly. "Yes. Did you not enjoy yourself? I rather thought that you did."

She lifted her head, her hair tousled and framing her face, and glared at him while her face flushed. She hit him lightly on the shoulder. "Not that. I meant ... that I would have gotten in your machine willingly. It made you happy to hear that, didn't it?"

He sighed and closed his eyes briefly. He was tired now, and his nightmares seemed a long way away. "Have we not discussed this enough for one evening?"

"You can't lie, Erik. I saw it."

"Then why are you asking me?"

She lay her head back down and yawned. "Never mind. I guess it doesn't matter. I don't want to die. Not for you, not for the cause. But I will. If I have to." Her voice was determined.

"I know," he murmured, stroking her back. "I will do my very best to see you survive to see the day we are victorious. That promise I can offer you, but I do not know what will be required of any of us in this war. I do not want you to die, Marie, and I regretted what I had to do to you even before you were more to me than a name."

She nodded, rubbing her face against his chest. "If you have to do it again, it had better work. That's all I'm saying." With that, she fell asleep. He stroked her hair and wondered how it had happened, that this terrified girl who had pleaded so desperately for him not to kill her hadjust given him her body and then promised that she'd die for him.

He thought about them, about his soldiers, as she lay quiescent and sleeping in his arms. They all were afraid of the same thing, really. Abandonment, imprisonment. Death before they had truly lived. Death before the dawn broke over a day when they no longer had to fear those shadows that haunted them in the night.

Erik stared out of the window until the sun broke through the clouds, lighting up the sky, streaking the horizon in red. A harbinger of things to come, so that the things that had been could be put to rest.

He could offer no more than that.

Fin


End file.
